


a guide to riley and farkle

by flowersandsunshine



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Dictionary Fic, F/M, Future Fic, Riarkle, clique six - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 07:59:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8393524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowersandsunshine/pseuds/flowersandsunshine
Summary: "Pure (adj.) – When we found our way back to each other, clinging to each other, we found that our love hadn’t been tainted, but had become stronger and more beautiful. I could breathe freely again."Farkle writes Riley a love letter, in the most unique and Farkle-ish way that he could think of.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cones_McMurphy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cones_McMurphy/gifts).



Ace (n., v.) – When I was younger, I assumed I was the smartest and best person around. I thought I didn’t have anything besides my brain, so I used my brain to the best of my abilities. I thought my exceptional brain would help me take over the world someday, and that you would be by my side when I did so.

Now I know that I do not have the most exceptional brain, nor will I take over the world someday. You are the most exceptional, Riley, and you took over my heart. 

I’m not good at writing love letters, so I thought I would write something that makes much more sense to me – a dictionary, one that is clear and relatable and we can find ourselves in it, with every word. 

I hope you enjoy. You’re top aces, babe!

\---

Adoption (n.) – When we were told that there was a baby for us, we both cried. The process was hard, but the payoff was amazing. Our daughter is perfect. We are truly blessed.

\---

Amazing (adj.) – If you turned to this word in the dictionary, there would be a picture of Riley Matthews, smiling and laughing in defiance of this world’s cruelty.

\---

Avalanche (n.) – The first year of our marriage was easy. It was effortless. But then, I broke away from my father’s company and then our baby died and suddenly we didn’t have it easy anymore. Suddenly, life was much harder. We started drifting apart. Our marriage began to break down.

Sometimes, it takes the storm to show you what you’re really made of.

We pulled through, and despite a few cuts and bruises, we grew stronger than ever.

\---

Bored (adj.) – When I met you and Maya, I was already bored with my life. My parents were fighting all the time. I had already read most of the books I was allowed to read in the house. My room was too big, and too empty. 

You two showed me what it was like to find adventure in the world without even leaving the house. All it took was a little imagination and a couple of great friends.

\---

Categorization (n.) – This feels wrong. It doesn’t feel like a story of our life, not really, not yet, because it’s out of order, just as everything is out of order in the dictionary. In a dictionary, the ache and the blood comes before the cut, and the mud comes before the rain, and I realize what an amazing woman you are before we’ve even met. The dictionary is made up of moments, that as a whole, create a complete and beautiful life. The only categorization is us. There is no other way to place our whole life in order. 

\---

Dad (n.) – Stuart Minkus, Cory Matthews. Two men, completely different. One a giant, ridiculous nerd, the other a genius. (Just kidding.) (Not really.) They raised us so differently, and maybe sometimes I thought Cory was more of a father than my own, but they both taught us in their own unique way. We could count on them for anything. Life lessons, career advice, a babysitter when Elizabeth came along. 

It was always nice to know that our dads were there for us.

\---

Distraught (adj.) – I don’t think I’ve ever seen such terrifying pain on your face as the day you miscarried our first child. I don’t think I’ve ever felt such pain as when you told me over the phone that our child had died before he had even lived. I had never held you so tightly as that day when I stumbled to the hospital and we sobbed in each other’s arms.

That silence that followed after we both had been completely dried of tears, that was the worst moment, when we were so tired and empty and said goodbye to our child with only the sounds of our own demons echoing in our heads.

\---

Fairyland (n.) – Whenever you dance, a fairy is born. Riley Matthews, you are an actual fairy, living in a fairyland inside your beautiful head. You twirl, and you sing, and you see the good in everything, and the combination creates a more beautiful world than the one you left in your wake. You create good. You are light. Your mystical world of colors and light and joy is one I hope we can all achieve someday. 

\---

Fluent (adj.) – I can speak so many languages, can speak with so many people all over the world, but you speak the language of the heart. That’s more beautiful than any language I’ve ever been able to speak.

I don’t normally gush this much about you, or say any of this out loud. You inspire it within me, and I am finally inspired to talk. Talk about you, talk about us, talk about Elizabeth, talk about the pain from the past and the joy of the present. You. Inspire. Me.

\---

Gratitude (n.) – I remember when Elizabeth first said thank you without being prompted. Auggie gave her a piece of gum, which we tried to tell him not to do, and Zay was laughing at our attempts to stop Auggie, when her little voice piped up and we all stopped.

“Thank you,” she said. That moment was one I will remember forever.

You taught her that. That feeling of thankfulness and being grateful, I could have never inspired that within her, but she always says thank you now. 

\---

Hell (n., expletive) – Every day I spend away from my wife and daughter.

\---

Icharus (n.) – I stepped back from you over and over. With Lucas, with Charlie Gardner, with Maya, with Abigail, with Thomas. Each time, I watched you get burned. Each time, my own heart broke a little bit more.

I told you this when we (finally) began dating. You placed your hand on my heart, tilted your head, and smiled. “I’m glad your heart is cracked,” you said.

“Why?” I asked. I was dumbfounded.

“Because now I get the chance to see the gold inside of it,” you explained.

No. No, you got the chance to fill it with gold.

Do my metaphors even make sense? Writing was never my strong suit.

In case you missed it, I was implying that you took my heart in your hand, and took all the loveliness within you, and you filled in the cracks in my heart with yourself.

(I love you.)

\---

Kilimanjaro (n.) – You told me once this was the highest mountain in the world. 19,341 feet high. I told you, of course, that it was not the highest, but you insisted it was still your favorite. You used to tell me facts about it, just for fun. I think it was meant to annoy me, but you always taught me something, and I was always grateful for it.

And let me tell you, Hans Meyer may have been the first to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, but he could not have been as scared as I was when I fell in love with you. 

See? I learned stuff.

\---

Mundane (adj.) – Not our life. Not with our friends. Not with Maya bursting in every couple of days, a complaint on her lips and a hug waiting. Not with Lucas casually attempting to make Elizabeth love him more than she loves us (it’s never going to happen). Not with Zay making inappropriate jokes every chance he gets. Not with Isadora attempting to teach our daughter how to flirt. 

I would never want our life to be mundane.

\---

New (adj.) – When you kissed me for the first time and breathed fresh air into my lungs, I became a new man.

\---

Nun (n.) – I remember when we were watching old shows on the television, and we came upon this British sitcom, “Keeping Up Appearances”, and Hyacinth’s sister, Rose, was screaming that she wanted to be a nun, and Onslow told her that she couldn’t be a nun, not with how short her skirt was.

We laughed so hard, we cried. I don’t know why that episode resonated with us so much, but it felt so good to just be sitting there, laughing until we thought our cheeks would fall off, calming down until we would look at each other and break into a fresh batch of laughter. 

We bought the entire series that night. I think we should show it to Elizabeth soon.

\---

Oppenheimer (n.) – “I am become death, destroyer of worlds.” 

When our marriage was splintering at the seams, and you were depressed to the point of suicide ideation, I finally understood what that quote meant. I, Farkle Minkus, had become death – the destroyer of my own world. I am still sorry.

\---

Pluto (n.) – I have always believed in you, just as you have always believed in Pluto. No matter how far away, how small you seemed, how much people wanted to discredit you, I always believed, because you’re Riley, and you’re my Pluto. Always. 

\---

Pure (adj.) – When we found our way back to each other, clinging to each other, we found that our love hadn’t been tainted, but had become stronger and more beautiful. I could breathe freely again. 

\---

Quaint (adj.) – When we went to Texas, I thought it would be like they say it is in the media. Huge, ridiculous, proud, full of hicks. But I went anyway, because you and Maya and Lucas and Zay were (are) my best friends. And I arrived, and it was everything I expected, and nothing I expected. It was huge, and the stars shone brighter than anything I’d ever seen before, and it was ridiculous, Cletus yelling and Maya reveling in it, and it was proud, Lucas’s grandfather being so proud when Lucas mastered Tombstone, and there were hicks, but there were good people. 

And it never seemed quite right to me, like it was a setting for a story that I was somehow in the middle of, and we were in the quaint little town right outside of Austin, just watching Maya and Lucas’s story unfold, and Zay and Vanessa grew close in that small storyboard of a town, and you and I went to an ice cream place that screamed “this is not real” to me because of how much it reminded me of the movies. 

I think of that as our first date sometimes. In that quaint little ice cream shop, when your heart was breaking and mine was finally beginning to wake up.

\---

Romance (n., v.) – I thought I was quite the little flirt when I was in middle school. It was so easy – it was you or Maya. I loved you both equally. I thought that’s what romance was.

Isadora Smackle showed me that feelings are more complicated than that. She proved to me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that feelings were immeasurable and indefinable. It took a few equations and a headache to admit that maybe she was right. That’s when I began to understand that maybe loving you and Maya equally did not equate to loving you two the same way.

So I learned and experimented in my relationship with Smackle. I bought flowers. I used terms of endearment. I had my first real kiss. I became accustomed to casual affection. And when she moved away, because of her incredible genius, I realized that I had learned much from her about how to romance a woman, and it was all leading up to my relationship with you.

Everything was leading up to my relationship with you.

\---

Smackle (n.) – A genius with a penchant towards flirting. Being a genius does not make her any less of a female. Being a flirt does not make her any less of a scientist. My first relationship. My first heartbreak. Still a friend. 

I’m glad you two still talk. She’s always loved you, Riley. She doesn’t show it very easily, but she does. And she loves Elizabeth, as well. You three together are truly unstoppable. 

\---

Stupid (adj.) – I can’t believe I went for so long trying to not be stupid. I thought my clothes were stupid. I thought my hair was stupid. I thought my best friend was stupid. I thought if I was normal, that I would be stupid. I thought the love I felt for you was stupid. I’m rambling, but you know what I mean. I guess this leads to the next entry, so I’ll start it before I get going too much.

\---

 

Superior (adj.) – I assumed, probably rightfully so, that my intellect was superior to everyone’s in our grade, and perhaps the three grades above us. My brain was all I had. It was why I threw myself into my work when I got into college, effectively severing all communication with everyone. I had to prove myself the best, so my parents would be proud of me and I would be worthy of other people’s attention and love. 

This hurt my relationship with so many people, and my belief that my brain was all I had hurt my relationship with myself. You were the only person to see me on my darkest days, because you never gave up. Thank you for getting me through all those days. 

\---

Therapist (n.) – Lucas told me when you started going to therapy. You didn’t tell Maya. You didn’t tell me. Lucas only knew because you let it slip one time. I never told you that I knew, because I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I used to wonder how it was going, why you decided to go, if you stopped going because your relationship with Lucas made you feel better. And I know we talked about it later, but I still have so many questions. I’m a scientist, Riley. I’m a curious person. Having never been to therapy, and never having fully completed my discussion with you, I still want to know about all the ways therapy helped you. 

I also just… I want to make sure you’re okay. Please tell me when you’re not. We can get through anything, you and me, together. Like always. 

\---

Yours (pn.) – I am yours, and you are mine. This is how it has always be; this is how it will always be. Maybe nothing in this dictionary of terms and feelings was in the right order, but the last word is, because it fits everywhere along our story. You and I are whole individuals without each other, but when Riley Matthews and Farkle Minkus come together as a partnership, the universe is a little bit brighter and everything feels right. Because I am yours. And you are mine. 

I love you.

**Author's Note:**

> so if you're in the nmtd/lolilo fandom, you may have read a couple of fics that follow this same pattern, which is where i got the idea for the fic in the first place. anyway these two fictional nerds have stolen my heart soooo.... yeah  
> i hope you enjoyed it! if you did, i would love if you would hit a quick kudos or drop a little comment. thank you all  
> (also um elizabeth i realized that i sort of named their child after you after i finished it. congrats)


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